Last week Professor Drake lectured about language and its origins. This got me to think of how I use language everyday. I feel that texting takes up about 50% of my language per day. It seems pretty ridiculous but it is the easiest way to contact somebody without verbally speaking to them. This got me to look into text messaging and how it evolved.
The first text message was officially sent, back in 1989, by a man who used a Motorola beeper. The recipient received the message as upside down numbers that could be interpreted as words. Texting was not very popular for a couple years with only 0.4 messages sent on average per month per customer in 1995. Most companies did not know how to bill text messages so this slowed the progression of the new technology. Many phones now offer a new form of text messaging called SMS. SMS stands for short messaging service. SMS is now offered with most smart phones and is used on the 3G network.
Text messaging has become the most widely used mobile data service. Approximately 74% of mobile phone users use text messaging today. In the UK, about 50 million text messages are sent everyday. This proves that text messaging has become a very serious means of communication and we should all embrace the new technology.
